Monthly Archives: November 2011

I’ve compiled a list with the Warlock relevant gear from the three new 5-man dungeons that will be released in 4.3. Similar to how the Icecrown Citadel 5-mans worked you will have to complete each dungeon before the next one is unlocked. The first dungeon is End Time, followed by Well of Eternity and finally Hour of Twilight.

The ilevel required to enter these dungeons is 353. The ilevel of the items that drop in these dungeons is 378.

As per usual I’ve not added Spirit items to the list, but if you have a very bad item there may be the odd occasion when a Spirit item is better than what you have. Always check your stat values though, because most of the time the item without Spirit will be better.

Sadly none of the dungeons seem to drop bracers, cloaks or necks for casters. There’s a Spirit cloak from Asira Dawnslayer, but that’s it. This means that you’ll most likely have to get items for those slots from Valor Points. I have a separate list which contains the drops from the Dragon Soul raid and the Valor Point items.

HEAD
Cowl of Highborne Sorcerors (Well of Eternity – Mannoroth & Captain Varo’then)

SHOULDER
Mantle of False Virtue (Hour of Twilight – Archbishop Benedictus)

CHEST
Robes of Fate (End Time – Murozond)

WAIST
Chillbane Belt (Hour of Twilight – Arcurion)

HANDS
Archivist’s Gloves (Quest Reward: Archival Purposes)

WRIST
Nothing  

LEGS
Time Traveler’s Leggings (End Time – all Echoes)

FEET
Slippers of Wizardry (Well of Eternity – Queen Azshara)

BACK
Nothing  

NECK
Nothing  

FINGER
Horned Band (Well of Eternity – Peroth’arn)
Ring of the Loyal Companion (Quest Reward: To Wyrmrest!)

TRINKET
Foul Gift of the Demon Lord (Well of Eternity – Mannoroth & Captain Varo’then)

WEAPON
Jaina’s Staff (End Time – Echo of Jaina)
Fanged Tentacle (Hour of Twilight – Archbishop Benedictus)
Stalk of Corruption (Hour of Twilight – Archbishop Benedictus)

OFF-HAND
Orb of the First Satyrs (Well of Eternity – Peroth’arn)

WAND
Writhing Wand (Quest Reward:  The Twilight Prophet)

If you wear a full set of the gear from these Heroics, you will be looking like this.

And below are the weapon choices.

Jaina's Staff

Stalk of Corruption

Fanged Tentacle (1h)

Orb of the First Satyrs (Off-Hand)

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Below is a list of gear that drops from the bosses in the Dragon Soul raid, as well as items that can be purchased with Valor Points as of the 4.3 patch.

The Dragon Soul items exist in three versions, Raid Finder (ilevel 384/390), Normal (ilevel 397/403) and Heroic (ilevel 410/416). I’ve only listed the ones from Normal, but that does mean that for each item there is a worse (Raid Finder) and better (Heroic) version.

The Valor Point items are all ilevel 397. Do note that in this patch no Tier pieces can be purchased from Valor Points.

Note: The items listed to drop from random bosses. This means any boss in the Dragon Soul raid except for Deathwing.

HEAD
Tier 13 Token (Warmaster Blackhorn)
Hood of Hidden Flesh (Vendor: 2200 Valor Points)

SHOULDER
Tier 13 Token (Hagara the Stormbinder)
Mosswrought Shoulderguards (Morchok)

CHEST
Tier 13 Token (Ultraxion)
Robes of Searing Shadow (Vendor: 2200 Valor Points)

WAIST
Cord of the Slain Champion (Warlord Zon’ozz)
Tentacular Belt (Vendor: 1650 Valor Points)

HANDS
Tier 13 Token (Warlord Zon’ozz)
Gloves of Liquid Smoke (Spine of Deathwing)
Clockwinder’s Immaculate Gloves (Vendor: 1650 Valor Points)

WRIST
Bracers of the Banished (Hagara the Spellbinder)
Chronoboost Bracers (Vendor: 1250 Valor Points)
Bracers of Unconquered Power (Tailoring Pattern)

LEGS
Tier 13 Token (Yor’sahj the Unsleeping)
Lavaquake Legwraps (Tailoring Pattern)

FEET
Janglespur Jackboots (Warmaster Blackhorn)
Kavan’s Forsaken Treads (Vendor: 1650 Valor Points)

BACK
Nanoprecise Cape (Vendor: 1250 Valor Points)

NECK
Opal of the Secret Order (Vendor: 1250 Valor Points)

FINGER
Ring of the Riven (Hagara the Spellbinder)
Infinite Loop (Random Boss Drop)
Seal of the Grand Architect (Vendor: 1250 Valor Points)

TRINKET
Cunning of the Cruel (Random Boss Drop)
Insignia of the Corrupted Mind (Yor’Sahj the Unsleeping)
Will of Unbinding (Spine of Deathwing)
Bottled Wishes (Vendor: 1650 Valor Points)

WEAPON
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind (Madness of Deathwing)
Ti’tahk, the Steps of Time (Madness of Deathwing)
Lightning Rod (Hagara the Spellbinder)
Vagaries of Time (Morchok)

OFF-HAND
Nothing  

WAND
Finger of Zon’ozz (Warlord Zon’ozz)
Hungermouth Wand (Vendor: 700 Valor Points)

Looking at the gear list there are some obvious things that I find peculiar.

• We have a few one handed weapons dropping in Dragon Soul, but not a single off-hand item. (There is one, and it has Spirit.)
• Not a single Neck or Cloak (without Spirit) drop in the raid instance, so we have to get those from Valor Points.
• You can’t get a full set of gear from Valor Points, there are – for instance – no legs or shoulders.

What's available from Valor Points

 

Tier 13

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Blizzard recently released a Talent Calculator for Mists of Pandaria. Obviously this is still in early stages and may (and probably will) change several times before the expansion is released.

I was looking through the list of spells and passive talents and saw a few changes.

Specialisation Specific Spells/Talents

As they were discussing during Blizzcon they want to make the specs to feel different to one another. For that reason they’ve made some spells that were previously a base spell spec specific.

Here’s a list of all the spec specific spells/talents (both changed and the ones we had before). Each spec will have their own recourse system to empower their spells, I’ve added a tag behind them in the list.

Affliction

• Unstable Affliction
• Soulburn (Resource)
• Drain Soul
• Seed of Corruption
• Soulburn: Health Funnel *new*
• Bane of Agony
• Malefic Grasp *new*
• Soulburn: Fear *new*
• Nightfall (Passive)
• Soulburn: Seed of Corruption
• Improved Fear (Passive)
• Soul Swap
• Soulburn: Demonic Circle Teleport (Passive)

Demonology

• Metamorphosis
• Demonic Fury (Resource) *new*
• Demonic Leap
• Hellfire
• Wild Imps *new*
• Bane of Doom
• Summon: Felguard
• Felguard: Pursuit (Passive)
• Metamorphosis: Immolation Aura (Passive)
• Demonic Rebirth (Passive)
• Hand of Gul’Dan
• Decimation (Passive)
• Demonic Freedom *new*
• Shadowflame
• Metamorphosis: Carrion Swarm (Passive) *new*

Destruction

• Conflagrate
• Immolate
• Rain of Fire
• Bane of Havoc
• Incinerate
• Infernal Embers (Resource) *new*
• Shadowburn
• Aftermath (Passive)
• Fire and Brimstone *new*
• Backlash (Passive)
• Destructive Influence (Passive) *new*

What we can read from this is that each spec have their own filler spell; Malefic Grasp, Shadowbolt and Incinerate. They also have their own Bane spell, and a few things that give the spec flavour. The AoE spells have been moved to a spec-only thing. At the moment you’ll more or less only use them like this anyway, but with the MoP changes you won’t have the possibility to pick the “wrong” one.

Drain Soul which used to be available to all specs is now Affliction only. Shadowflame is Demonology only. I’m going to miss Shadowflame!

I see their reasoning for putting one Bane per spec, but I don’t like it. Choosing which Curse and which Bane to use was always something I enjoyed. Not only that, but Bane of Havoc for Destruction would need to see a change, because it is great for a dual target fight, but does nothing on a single target fight – which would effectively leave Destruction without a Bane spell for any single target boss fight.

New Spells

The new spells for the specs seem fairly interesting.

All Specs

Nethermancy (Passive)
This is a passive ability that increases the Warlock’s Intellect by 5%. Fairly straight forward and given to all specs at level 50.

Unending Resolve
This seems to be our very own little survival cooldown. It makes us take 50% less damage and makes us immune to interrupts for 12 seconds. 3 minute cooldown. Gained at level 64. I like this addition, because I miss the old “tanky” feeling of Warlocks. I am still secretly hoping for a Warlock tanked boss like Leotheras the Blind in SSC.

Demonic Portal
Our level 88 ability. It creates a demonic gateway between two locations (70 yard range it seems) which allows party/raid members to port from one to the other. Limit 5 charges, generates 1 charge every 15 seconds. I’m curious about this one, and I’m already trying to think of boss fights where something like this might be fun/handy.

Affliction

Soulburn: Health Funnel
A new possibility for your Soulburn; it will instantly restore 36% of health and decrease damage taken by 30% for 10 seconds. It doesn’t specify in the tooltip, but judging from what this spell normally does I think we can assume it’s all for your demon and not your own health/damage taken.

Malefic Grasp
The new filler spell for Affliction supposedly. They seem to want to bring Affliction to a drain type spec, because unlike Shadowbolt/Incinerate this is a channeled spell. It appears to be a 3 second channel. You can supposedly increase the time by recasting the channel before it finishes, I think this will be done using the new resource system (Soul Shards in Affliction’s case). While channeling it doesn’t only do damage though, but it also increases the periodic ticks of your other DoTs by 100%.

Soulburn: Fear
Using Soulburn with fear will change it from being a cast spell with a 20 second fear to an instant cast with a 4 second fear. I guess this might be good if you’re really in a rush to get something feared, but I can’t help but think that in most cases I’d prefer to cast my fear and get the longer duration.

Demonology

Wild Imps
Instant cast spell with a 30 second cooldown that summons one Wild Imp which will cast five Firebolts at your target. With more Demonic Fury (your resource as Demonology) you will summon more imps, but the cost of the spell will also be higher.

Demonic Freedom
Instant cast, 1.5 minute cooldown. Instantly restores 25% of your demon’s health and removes all stun, snare, fear, banish or horror and movement impairing effects for 15 seconds. This seems quite a bit like a PvP thing to me, but might also save your demon in a raid if it’s taking a lot of damage for some reason.

Metamorphosis: Carrion Swarm (Passive)
This ability basically turns your Shadowflame into Carrion Swarm while you’re in Metamorphosis. Carrion Swarm will knock enemies away from you.

Destruction

Fire and Brimstone
Instant cast, 10 second cooldown. Your next Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate or Soul Fire will hit all targets within 15 yards of the target. A simple, little spell that will help with a bit of AoE damage.

Destructive Influence (Passive)
This is a passive ability that makes your demon’s attacks decrease the cast time of Soul Fire by 0.1 seconds. It stacks up to 40 times though, so I’m guessing we’re meant to let it stack and then get an instant cast once in a while.

Changed Spells

There are some changes to spells and abilities as we know them as well.

Curse of Enfeeblement
This is a new version of Curse of Weakness. It now reduces physical damage done by 30% and cast time is increased by 30%. Lasts for 30 seconds. It does make a note that this is less effective against dungeon and raid bosses, but it doesn’t say how much less effective.

Twilight Ward
This is a new version of Shadow Ward. It will absorb an amount of Shadow or Holy damage, lasting for 30 seconds. With Nether Ward no longer being in our spec, I guess that means we can no longer get full immunity like Destruction currently can.

Dark Intent
This has changed considerably and is now a raid wide buff that increases everyone’s spellpower by 6%. Basically this means that all Warlock specs get the former Demonology talent Demonic Pact (though slightly worse). I’ll still miss the haste though. I liked the haste.

Fel Armor
Demon Armor appears to be gone, and instead there have been a few changes to Fel Armor. The new version increases armor by 2603, total stamina by 10% and amount of health generated by spells and effects by 10%.

Chaos Bolt & Haunt
These spells aren’t so much changed as completely removed. I realise that Chaos Bolt may be a bit of a clunky spell with a long cooldown, but I hope they put it back with some new use to it. It’s a great looking spell after all. Haunt was also a spell I quite liked to have in my arsenal. Hopefully Malefic Grasp can make up for it on MoP though.

Hand of Gul’Dan
This seems to have changed quite a bit. It no longer refreshes Immolate (since that is now a Destruction only spell), and is now an instant cast spell that summons a meteor. The meteor seems to do damage only after 2.5 seconds though, so I guess that means it needs a stationary target. However, it seems to stack a movement reduction effect on the target, so maybe we can hope they don’t get out in time..

I’m sure there are more changes that I’ve missed, but those were some of the more obvious ones that I could find.

On the whole there are some things I’m not sure about (like Bane of Havoc being the only one to use for Destruction in its current model), but since there’s plenty of time between now and the release of MoP I’m fairly confident that Blizzard will iron out the problems. I think Warlocks may end up fun to play (as they already are) with a fairly definite feel to each of the specs.

I didn’t mention the new talent trees today, even though they have changed a bit since the Blizzcon preview. Cynwise has a great breakdown of these though, so go over there and have a look!

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